I was sitting at the computer with the small desk television on when Robert Wagner appeared and started peddling reverse mortgages. For some reason this caused me to think about an old house on Buchanan Street. That old house was my aunt's home located at 2011 Buchanan Street in Pasadena, Texas. It set me to wondering about who if anyone lived there now and what was the condition of the house. I wondered, are they building memories there as we did?

You see our extended family all lived close to each other all of my parent's life. From the farm in north east Texas . . . to the sojourn in in Orange (my birthplace) . . . to finally settling in Pasadena, Texas when I was about 9 or 10 years the Appleby's lived close together, went to church together, played together celebrated together and grieved together. There was a mystic and real bond that kept us centered as a family.

At any rate, Robert Wagner started me on a nostalgic and somewhat emotional journey. You see, that old house was the location of many of events that have become my childhood and adult memories. I remembered that it was there that Raymond (my uncle) showed me how to paint those cute little circles in the ceiling when I was about ten years old. I still see all his fishing rods and equipment on the left hand side of the garage.

Memories, boy do I have some. I still see my father, his brothers and sisters all squeezed on a small couch for a family photo; I can still see everyone gathered around the old out of tune upright piano as my mother played and everyone sang. Seemed every gathering required some family singing; then there was the all night camp out by cousins sleeping under tents in the house made up of sheets and blankets tied to chairs with a fan keeping them semi-inflated; the reading of the Christmas story. Yep if it involved the extended Appleby family then it happened in that house on Buchanan Street.

As I have thought about it that old house in a real way represented our extended Appleby family. It seem to me that as long as that house was there there was a sense or permanency about what we had as a family. That old house became significant not because of its size, its beauty or its condition but because over time it became the Appleby family gathering place. It was in that house that great extended family events transpired. From wedding and holiday celebrations to post funeral meals . . . that house new them all. Every new born in the family would pass through that house and it was the house where the matriarch of our family, my grandmother died. Come to think of it there was a crowd there that night as well.

That phrase "reverse mortgage" shook me back to the present reality. That bond that my grandparents started and their children perpetuated has been largely lost by my generation. The real world effects of that reverse mortgage had on my aunt's ownership of the house became a symbol of what has happened to that old Appleby family bond. The steady and consistent eating away of the value of the home until she no longer owned it proved to be a metaphor for the slow but apparently inevitable dissolving of that greater Appleby Family Bond. Slowly but most certainly as the generation that included my father and his siblings began to slip the surly bonds of earth that family bond began to loosen. Over time those of my generation began to drift apart and become scattered all across the country. Perhaps it was inevitable that we should thus drift. The Matriarch was no longer there to command our presence and our own careers and families took us away from the city where that old house was located.

O, to be sure when we do get together now, largely reduced to funerals, we still enjoy a brief rebirth of that family bond. I don't suppose that what was born in our youth will ever completely fade away but it sure isn't what it used to be. In fact, my children do not know my cousin's children the way I knew my cousins. They share a common heritage but in many instances don't even know each other's names and to me that's sad. Sometimes I feel sorry for them that we didn't give them what our families gave us. Blame it on the times or whatever but they have missed something very special and I suspect they don't even know it.

Perhaps the answer lies in regenerative nature of life. One generation first gives birth and then gives way to the next. Perhaps it was and is the responsibility of each generation to give birth to a new expression of that old family bond. If we do maybe just maybe somewhere down the line there will be an old house in our children and grand children's lives that they will look back upon with wonderful memories. But for now I'll just sit here and enjoy what the hymn writer described when he penned the words:

Precious memories how they linger

How they ever flood my soul;

In the stillness of the midnight

precious sacred scenes unfold.

If you don't have any then heed the advice of Trace Adkins in his song "Just Fishin" and start making some memories.

Not Equal Tax but Equal Sacrifice

Warren Buffett recently concluded off-ed piece in the New York Times by saying, "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."

In the article he reflected on his years an investment advisor going back to 1950 That is just five or so years after Henry Hazlett popularized the idea that taxing the wealthy would hurt job creation. In that same article he took on this theory and pointed to the fact that in his 60 years of working with investors it was when the wealthiest among us were taxed at the highest rates (39.9%) that jobs were created and when they we taxed at the lowest rate (21.5%) jobs were lost and he has the data to back it up. This by itself should tell us something

However, I want to focus on his notion of "shared sacrifice." That got me to thinking about my own life experience. Now I am not by any stretch of the imagination or even in my wildest dreams in the same income bracket as Warren Buffett and his friends . . . not even close. But this idea of "shared sacrifice" resonated with me

During my active ministry all but one of the churches where I served as senior pastor engaged in some sort of building program. In each and every one of those congregations that entered into these campus expansions there was a dual commitment. First, we wanted everyone, no mater what their financial ability, to participate financially in the project. Simply stated we want everyone to be invested in the new facilities. Second, we insisted that financial burden would be shared by everyone equally.

You see, I believed that everyone who would use the facility or his children and grandchildren would use the facility should have a financial investment in bringing those building projects to completion. It is only right that it you are to use it you should help pay for it. Did we succeed? Not completely. You always have people who want to ride on someone else's nickle. Not everyone who was a member of those churches choose to participate but most did.

We also believed that the burden of providing those facilities should be equally shared. Did we succeed it this? I think largely so! Now this did not mean that each member or family would give an equal amount to the project. What it meant was to equally sharing the burden. We recognized the biblical principle of, "to whom much is given much shall be required."

Equal giving in terms of amount would not be fair and it would make it impossible for some to participate. We did not even set a percentage of income that would be the same for everyone because that too would be unfair to those at the lowest levels of the income spectrum and force some not to participate.

That's why Warren Buffett's "shared sacrifice" resonates with me. What we asked the poorest and the wealthiest among us to do was to sit down as a family, examine their personal financial circumstance and arrive at an amount and method of giving level that would create a level of financial pain. Essentially we asked them to give until it actually cost them something to give the amount. And that is exactly what they did. From the widow living on Social Security and in HUD housing to the wealthiest among us living in their large opulent homes these commitments were made. In every case the end result was success.

I don't know what kind of tax code we need in terms of form. I do know what we need in terms of fair. It is fair, only when the burden in shared as evenly as is humanly possible. Rich man, poor man, beggar man are Americans all and to a person would just as soon not pay any taxes and some on both ends of the spectrum don't and that's not right. (BTW - I suspect that the combined incomes of all the people on the low end of the income spectrum that pay no taxes don't equal the income as one of the families on the top end of the spectrum who pay no taxes

But I digress and must come to the conclusion of this matter. Recognizing that they are necessary I contend that they should also be fair. I want to know that we are in this together and that we share the tax burden fairly. I don't even suggest that the tax burden hurt equally. Rather than having equal tax pain I would prefer it to be equally painless to the low income family as it is to the upper income family. I don't want my perot boat to sink while the fellow living on Easy Street sails away on his mega-yacht